Every few months for some reason the American nation experiences a moral shock over and over again when a usual celebrity or a politician is caught cheating. The puritan background and the morality of the American society demand fidelity in a marriage. In fact according to WomanSavers.com, 90% of Americans consider infidelity unacceptable, while 35% believe it should be considered a criminal act.
Men Cheat More Often Than Women
No matter how morally wrong, cruel and self-destructive infidelity can be, it is impossible to deny that not only does it exist in the American society – it is very common. Both men and women cheat, but men are leading with a huge gap. Human males were proved not to be monogamous by nature. That means they have a tendency to cheat.
And again here are the statistics: according to therapist Peggy Vaughn the author of Monogamy Myth (Newmarket Press, 1989) about 60% of men will have an affair at some point during their marriage. Maggie Scarf, the author of Intimate Partners (Ballentine, 1987), claims that the percentage of unfaithful husbands is as high as 65%. The percentage of cheating wives according to Peggy Vaughn is only 40%.
This situation is probably impossible to change – nobody can influence the moral standards of any given human being, but the fascinating issue about infidelity is its causes. As 19th century Russian philosopher Kozma Prutkov said, “Find a cause and a beginning for everything and you will understand quite a lot”.
Why Men Cheat
It’s in their DNA. Fidelity is biologically abnormal for a male since his evolutional purpose is to impregnate as many females as possible. The male genes demand the variety of sexual partners and pursuing as young and attractive females as possible. The Polish writer Janusz Wisniewski, the author of the famous erotic novel Loneliness in the Web ( Proszynski, 2002) and a professor of biology, came up with a formula of the age of the average “younger woman” of a cheating husband. According to Wisniewski, it’s half of a man’s age plus seven years.
Challenge. Men always wanted to be courageous and daring. For many of them conquering a new woman seems like an act of bravery, creativity and strength. Many men regard an affair as their private little triumph over every day routine and the society that presses the monogamous lifestyle on them.
Improving self-image. Many man suffer from secret (or not so secret) inferiority complex and constantly seek the confirmation of their success. Some of them are energetic and goal-oriented super achievers who cannot get enough triumph in life, while others are traumatized by their professional failures and are desperately seeking to succeed elsewhere. Nothing can improve a man’s self-image and flatter their masculinity better than being able to satisfy a woman (or many women).
The “forbidden fruit” syndrome. A woman can be the most devoted mother and a faithful caring wife, but those qualities won’t necessarily make her sexually attractive in her husband’s eyes. Many cheating men are haunted by erotic fantasies that for one reason or another can’t be translated into reality with their spouses. The family atmosphere bores them while the extramarital affair seem deliciously clandestine.
It should be mentioned that the causes of male infidelity described above have one mutual origin (which is also similar for women) – boredom and routine of monogamy. They say that there are good marriages, but there are no exciting marriages. That’s probably true in most cases. Whether any given husband will sacrifice the excitement in order to protect stability in his family or try to have “the best of the both worlds” hoping not to get caught – the choice is his!
Find this article interesting? Read also Why Women Cheat.
Bibliography:
Vaugn, Peggy. Monogamy Myth. New York: Newmarket Press, 1989.
Lawson, Annette. Adultery. New York: Basic Books, 1989.
Scarf, Maggie. Intimate Partners. New York: Ballentine, 1987.
Wisniewski, Janusz. Domagalik, Malgorzata. 188 Days and Nights. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo, 2006.
Anna Inger - My name is Anna Inger. I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia, spent most of my life in Israel and for the last few years I've been ...
